DISORDER (Huang Weikai, China). 58 minutes. Subtitled.
Saturday (May 1), 9 pm, Cumberland 3 Tuesday (May 4), 9:15 pm, Innis Town Hall. Rating: NNNN
Huang Weikai’s short but powerful film essay looks at a dozen surreal situations in an unnamed Chinese city. Pigs escape on a highway. A driver tries to convince a hit-and-run victim that he’s lying. People find and then leave an abandoned baby. Police discover a freezer full of bear claws.
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There’s no narrator, titles or clear arc to the film, which is captured in vivid black-and-white. But Huang finds a visual and aural rhythm, building to an inevitable, disturbing climax. Several features have caught the chaos of rapidly industrialized China, but none is as raw or terrifying as this.
